What to choose Custom Website vs. readymade Website template? It is challenging to select custom web development solutions, custom-built website, custom website features, or to go for the premade website templates, free responsive web templates, dynamic website templates. When you plan a launch of a website, you had to know all stepping stones, strengths, and weaknesses of both designs.
As an entrepreneur, you have to make critical decisions before the web development process.
Well, the decision is entirely subjective, and both have their own sets of pros and cons. However, custom web development is preferred because it has certain benefits that provide a competitive advantage over the generic website templates.
We are going to address all of the critical factors that you should consider while making this choice. For each element, we will give you an honest and unbiased evaluation of how a pre-made template/ website template compares to a custom design. By the end, you will be able to make a well-informed decision on what is best for your business.
Get ready to dive in!
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Flexibility & Customization
- The need to launch a website varies from person to person. Some do it for business purposes, while others do it to showcase their creativity to the world. Now, all these varied needs demand different web applications. But this would not happen if one uses a website template. Such a site may not succeed in displaying your real talent or the most important products of your company, thus failing to attract the right kind of people.
- Just as the name sounds, If you go for custom web development services, you can design the website according to your vision. The web developers that you hire gain a solid understanding of your company’s branding, what you want your site to look like, and what is the intended audience of your website? It means that the finished product will be personalized to fit your marketing strategy. And if you’re going to make alterations along the way, as your strategy or branding changes, a web design team will be there to help you do that. This one to one communication between the site owner and the browser is significant for the success of the site.
- Ask Yourself: Do you want a unique page layout? Do you want your website to fit well with the branding of the business? Do you want to continue to build upon the site in the future? If the answer is yes, then you should probably better off going with custom web design.
Originality
- ‘It’s safe to assume that there are other websites out there that look exactly like yours. Of course, you won’t have this problem with a custom design, since it will be built to look exactly the way you want it to. Ask yourself: Do you care if your website is not built unique? Is this like to affect your brand’s reputation or impact the bottom line? If not, then there might be no harm in choosing a website template. But, if originality and standing out from the crowd is essential to your business, then you’ll want to stick with a custom web design.
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User Experience & Presentation
In fashion, aesthetics plays a vital role in driving traffic and boosting sales. A custom web design/development will go a long way to go if you want to create a high-quality presentation and user experience for your website visitors. In fact, this results in higher user engagement and ensures efficient communication with visitors.
Moreover, the custom-built are more user-friendly and anticipates the user expectations and tailor the development process accordingly.
However, a website template might be preferable if the image ‘isn’t an essential part of your business.
Ask Yourself: Do you require a website that has customized functionality and makes the user experience as comfortable and personalized as possible?
If so, then you will probably want a custom web design. If you are okay with a limited, less customized functionality, then a website template could fit your needs just fine.
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Custom Functionality
Functionality is how a user interacts with your site. A website template can provide a decent amount of functionality, but it’s not going to be customized to fit your exact needs. Meanwhile, a custom web design allows the user to perform a particular action on your site that generates a result unique to your business or process
Ask Yourself: Do you require a website that has customized functionality and makes the user experience as secure and personalized as possible?
If so, then you will probably want a custom web design. If you are okay with a limited, less customized functionality, then a website template could fit your needs just fine.
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Price
If you are on a strict budget, a website template might be the way to go. The downside to custom design is, of course, that the starting price is much higher, typically ranging from $6,000 to $20,000, depending on your needs and desired outcome. Of course, the more pages, forms, and templates you have, the more costly the web design will be.
Ask Yourself: ‘What’s my budget? How much do you want to spend on your website? If the answer is “not much,” then ‘you’ll probably be limited to a website template.
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SEO Security
SEO often causes business owners a lot of unnecessary confusion, worry, and stress. Many templates are created to look great and are not necessarily geared towards SEO. The wise web designer will be able to create a site that ranks well in search engine rankings, contains relevant keywords and metadata to assist search engine in recognizing your site as genuine, informative, and useful.
Whereas, business owners who prefer a premade template will have to hire an SEO specialist to improve search engine rankings. They could have saved their extra time and money by hiring a professional web designer when they first began the web design process.
Ask yourself: Are you looking to expand your business? Are you looking for ways to make yourself free from stress, worry, and hassle and trust your ‘business’s digital image?
Although the allure of the seemingly low price of a template can be tempting. Often ‘you’ll find yourself paying more money than ever intended to, especially when you begin to expand a business.
Save yourself from the stress, hassle, and worry. Reap benefits of a one-time investment.
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Verdict
To summarize it up, custom web design is like having an architect construct a house for you. A website template or a custom web design depends on several factors, such as what type of business you have and ‘who’s your target and what your needs are.
For specific businesses, a website template with basic functionalities does the job. Whereas the capabilities offered by a custom web design might not have a significant impact on the bottom line.
If you just want to build a website that shares information about your business, and you don’t need much flexibility or customization in the design creation. It’s likely not worth it to invest money in a custom web design.
If you want your website to grow along with your business, then there’s no question that you will want to choose a custom web design.
Think about what sort of business you are looking for and your audience will expect while visiting your site.
For instance, if you are to stumble upon the website of a SaaS business, and find that it’s some cookie-cutter design or it ‘isn’t modern or professional, you are not going to spend long on that website. ‘You’ll assume that if the business ‘isn’t intentional about their website, then they probably aren’t intentional about a lot of things either.
If you decide that a website template fits your needs best, make sure that you get mobile-responsive one. Sure, it will cost you a bit more. But with 56% of traffic coming from mobile, having a mobile-responsive website is of the utmost importance.
You should also choose a template that comes from a web design agency. It is a much safer bet than just selecting a random one-off of WordPress or Squarespace. Since you will at least have people available who can help you customize the template as much as possible and be there should any issues with the template arise.
But if it sounds like you need a custom web design, ‘we’d love to help. And whether you go with us or not, ‘we’ve got some awesome coming Soon templates for you to choose from while you’re waiting for that website to be built.
And if, after reading this, ‘ you’re still unsure about what to do, pick up the phone and give us a call or request a free consultation.
Contact us today and we will do an honest (and free) evaluation of your business and help you determine what the best fit is.
